I, Robot: Interview with Humans' Gemma Chan

Machines come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees
of complexity, and for several centuries, they have been helping make life
easier for the human race. A co-production of AMC and the UK’s Channel Four and
Kudos, the new Sci-Fi TV drama Humans
is set in a parallel world present day London and introduces viewers to the
latest and trendiest must-have gadget, a human-looking robot called a “Synth.” These
mechanical marvels have been especially designed to take the drudgery out of
everyday life for human beings at home, at the office and out and about in the
everyday world. It all just sounds too good to be true, right? For actress
Gemma Chan, discovering the hitch behind the Synths was a big enticement for
her wanting to help tell this story.

“Humansis actually an adaption of a hit Swedish TV series calledReal
Humans, and I remember a while back reading a very early article stating
that a British production company had acquired the rights to it,” says Chan. “I
decided to send a copy of that article to my agent, which is something I don’t
usually do, with a note saying, ‘I just have a feeling about this project. It
sounds really interesting and right up my street. Please let me know if and
when they ever start to cast it.’ Six months later I received a call to read
for the role of a Synth named Anita. I was asked to come to the audition with
an idea of how such a character might move and how I would convey to audiences
what was going on behind her outward façade. It was a fascinating experience
and unlike any other audition I’d ever done. The process wound up being quite
straightforward, though, and I was offered the part after just one audition,” she
enthuses.

In
Humans, Chan’s character of Anita is
purchased as a robotic servant by the well-meaning Joe Hawkins (Tom
Goodman-Hill). He hopes that having a Synth to deal with the daily running of
the house will give him and his wife Laura (Katherine Parkinson) more time
together, not only restoring marital bliss but also repairing the familial
bond. Not surprisingly, Anita takes to her new job like a proverbial duck to
water, and she soon has the Hawkins’ household running like clockwork. For
Chan, taking her first few steps in Anita’s shoes was not as easy as her
onscreen alter ego made it appear.

“The
first scene we shot on my first day of work was actually the scene in the
opening episode where the Hawkins’ teenage daughter shoots an air gun at my
character’s head,” recalls the actress. “So it wasn’t an easy introduction for
me or Anita; I dove right into that scene, and it was a tricky one. We shot
12-hour days, and including travel and make-up, it came to 16 hours. I remember
getting home from that first day of work and thinking, ‘This is going to be a really
tough job,’ because there was so much to keep in your head.

“Before filming even began, all the actors playing Synths did about a month’s worth of
prep with an amazing choreographer named Dan O’Neill. All of us work-shopped
together and came up with a physical ‘language’ that the Synth characters would
have. Once we then stepped in front of the cameras, it was a matter of trying
to remember everything that we had discovered in those workshops and convey all
that movement while also making certain you were in the moment and properly
playing the scenes opposite your fellow actors. It was initially quite
difficult and I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, my head is going to explode.’ As filming
went on, it got, I wouldn’t say easy, because it was a unique physical
challenge, but certainly it became a little more like second nature.”

Deciding
to set aside her initial reservations for the sake of her family, Laura tries to
get used to having Anita around the house. However, despite the sense of
domestic bliss created by the Synth, Laura cannot let her guard totally down
with regard to Anita.

“My character is a
bit of an enigma when you first meet her, and all is not quite as it seems,”
reveals Chan. “I think that the family in the show as well as the audience
watching the show, will realize that Anita isn’t like any other Synth that the
neighbors have. You will discover more about her backstory throughout the
course of the story, and there’s a reason why she is the way she is and why
she’s different. The experiences that Anita has with being a part of the Hawkins
family and the bonds she makes with each individual member really change her,
and she won’t be the same by the end of the show.

“It
was such a wonderful opportunity to play a character where there’s something
else going on underneath, and you have to figure out ways to allow bits of that
hidden persona to bubble through to the surface. One of the things I really
love about Anita, especially when you first meet her, is that she acts like a mirror
of sorts to the Hawkins family. Depending on each family member and where
they’re at in their lives, what their needs are and their preexisting attitudes
towards new technology, they each project different things onto Anita in a way.
I developed great relationships with the other cast members playing the Hawkins
family, especially Katherine Parkinson, as well as Pixie Davies, who plays
Sophie, the youngest daughter, and I enjoyed working with everyone.

“I
have to say, too, that something else I found very interesting about Humansis that although it’s sci-fi, it’s not traditional sci-fi. When I
read the first script, it didn’t realty read like a sci-fi drama at all, but
rather a true character-driven piece with lots of different layers. As far as
the [sci-fi] genre, it’s a refreshing take on it. We’ve seen stories set in the
future or the present day with killer robots running amuck and/or wanting to
enslave humankind. In Humans, I don’t
believe it takes a stance on whether the Synth technology is good or bad. It’s
more about the possible emotional and philosophical effects of such a technology
if it existed in our everyday lives.”

Born
in London, England, Chan dabbled in acting while growing up, but it was purely
for fun as opposed to anything else. She dreamed of pursuing a variety of
professions and even graduated from university before ever deciding to focus
her efforts on establishing herself in the industry.

“At one point I
wanted to become a marine biologist, and then I wanted to become an
astrophysicist and work for NASA,” recalls the actress. “What’s great about
acting is that you get to step into all these different pairs of shoes and
pretend to be lots of different people. I’m interested in other peoples’ lives
and telling stories, so I eventually found my way into this [acting], and I’m
so grateful that I get to do it for a living.

“So
I’m not one of these actors who, at five years old decided this was their
calling. I originally studied law at Oxford, which was partly at my parents’
insistence to study something academic at university, but after getting my law
degree, I enrolled in drama school at the Drama Center in London. I spent two
years studying there, and after that I got an agent and began working, so I was
quite lucky in that way.”

One
of Chan’s first TV jobs was playing Mia Bennett in the Doctor Who2009 Christmas
special “The Waters of Mars.” “This was David Tennant’s penultimate story as
The Doctor, and we spent a month filming in Wales,” says the actress. “Because
it was a Doctor Whospecial, we had slightly more time to
shoot and also, I think, a slightly bigger budget. There were these amazing
sets that were supposed to be a base on Mars, and over that month, we literally
destroyed them. We flooded them, set fire to them, and various characters were
killed off on them. I was fortunate enough that my character survived to the
end of the episode and got to travel in the TARDIS, which very few characters
get to do. The entire experience was brilliant fun, and the cast was a joy to
work with.”

The IT Crowd, Sherlock, Secret Diary of a
Call Girl and Bedlam are among
the actress’ other TV credits, while on the big screen, Chan appears in such
feature films as Exam, Submarineand Jack Ryan: Shadow
Recruit. She can next be seen in two upcoming movies, Belles familiesand London Fields.

“I
shot Belles familiesin Paris last year and that has a
fantastic cast that includes Mathieu Amalric, who plays the lead, and Marine
Vacth,” says Chan. “It’s a very French story about love and family that was
directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, who is incredible. He directed [the 1990 film]
Cyrano de Bergeracwith Gerard Depardieu, so I was
thrilled to work with him.

“As
for London Fields, it’s an adaption
of Martin Amis’ cult novel and, I think, a very ambitious film. Once again, I
had the privilege of working with an outstanding group of actors such as Johnny
Depp, Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess and Billy Bob Thornton. It was a crazy busy
shoot, but I think it will be a really fun film.”

Humans has its U.S. premiere Sunday, June 28th @ 9:00 p.m. EST/PST on the AMC Network. Please note, all Humans photos above copyright of AMC/Channel 4/Kudos and the Doctor Who photo copyright of BBC.

A native of Massachusetts, Steve Eramo has been a Sci-Fi fan since childhood, having been brought up on such TV shows as Star Trek and Space: 1999. He is also an Anglophile and lover of British TV. A writer for 35 years – 17 of those as a fulltime freelancer – Steve has had over 2,500 feature-length…